HIFI amp for monitoring

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flextone

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So I'm looking to get a good quality hifi amp to drive my newly acquired KEF 103.2's that I'm planning to use as a second monitor pair. I'm looking at the second hand hifi market as budget is tight, I hate fans, and a good amp is a good amp.

1) How crucial is matching my Fireface's output sensitivity of +4dBu and the hifi input sensitivity of -10dBV? And what's the best way of achieving this? I loose 6db already when if I go unbalanced. Which brings me to

2) The amp inputs will be unbalanced. Though the cable will be short (2m-4m), I'm still worried this can cause problems.


Thanks for your time.
 
A good hi fi amp is a good hi fi amp. Doesn't make it a good monitoring amp, necessariy... there are many posts on this subject.

However, the lack of balanced inputs shouldn't be a concern over short distances...
 
You can pad the +4 output to -10, unbalanced amp inputs are not a problem. I used a hi fi amp for years to run monitors and as long as they are powerful enough they will work fine remembering to have the EQ flat, actually thinking about it I have an old Technics hi fi amp running the talk back speakers in the recording area which we listen to music through on occasions.

Cheers
alan.
 
Take a look at the specs on a few amps and find ones with a real width frequency response and check the THD. I can tell you right now you probably don't want a class D amp due to higher harmonic distortion, but there QSC makes a class D that's really clean for a class D amp but its meant for live sound and I would guess for don't want something that puts out 4000 watts at 2 ohms per channel. I've really only dealt with amps for live use so I don't how helpful I'll be but, QSC has some lower power models that will do the trick. The RMX 850 might suite your needs, its a class A/B, but it has a fan which is something you said for hate.

If I remember right you can get a Class A power amp but I don't remember who makes it and I think it was pretty pricey.
 
Man, you can score Alesis 100-watt monitor amps ALL DAY LONG for a c-note, although I have read many places that a good hi fi amp makes a good monitor amp, too. Although I do only a little mixing, I drive my monitors with a vintage (but solid state) Yamaha CA-410 II- very clean, pretty darn flat, and with separate input and output selectors, very versatile.

YMMV...
 
I'm looking at a Kenwood M2. It has great specs, more than 200wpc, very low THD, damping factor of 1000 (!), and at least the hifi crowd say it sounds wonderful. Of course this doesn't mean it'll make for a good studio amp.

I'm currently located in Germany and penetration of american brands of poweramps isn't very substantial. No haflers, Bryston etc. I see a lot of QSC and some Crown but the good models (D300 for example) sell for way too much. They have some local brands which are supposed to be good, but it's very hard to verify that. Stuff like KMT sound, Dynacord and more.

What are your experiences with Power amplifier fan cooling? How big of a problem in a home environment? I guess a fan at low speed which is well built and isolated shouldn't make noise but it's a risk nonetheless. If I intend to work at low-moderate levels, is disconnecting the fan wrong?
 
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I'd forgo fan cooling altogether, and (if you go with an Alesis A-100 or similar) get an amp with huge heat sinks for passive cooling. If well-designed, a 100-watt amp won't need noisy fans.

If you want to go really cheap, Samson Servo series amps are pretty good- I have a Servo120 that has performed well, even in live service to drive the horns. Passive cooling, too.
 
I'm looking at the second hand hifi market as budget is tight, I hate fans, and a good amp is a good amp.
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Rotel (high current models). Those are "real" speakers that deserve a "real" amplifier. Steer clear of the ~$100-200 music store trash.
 
I hear you John. I'm trying to avoid stuff with the words ultra, mega, tech, micro, and a X's in their name :)
 
If you find any second hand Yamaha amps, te small PA amps not the domestic type, these were the amp of choise in studios once.

Alan
 
Found a Yamaha P2250M, but at 170wpc, I think it's a tad too weak. Not sure about this though.
 
witzendoz said:
I have an old Technics hi fi amp running the talk back speakers in the recording area which we listen to music through on occasions.
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The old Technics "New Class A" amps are awesome. I use an SU-V7 with my KEF C20s as monitors. I have a working SU-V3 also, but the volume pot is busted. The speaker switch in these amps comes in handy for switching between monitor pairs. I can use one pair of C20s while sitting at the desk and switch to the other pair so people standing behind me can listen. Running both pairs at once provides a bit of bass reinforcement, which is useful sometimes since the C20s are bass shy when positioned away from the walls.
 
flextone said:
Found a Yamaha P2250M, but at 170wpc, I think it's a tad too weak. Not sure about this though.
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You are kidding me? 170 wpc too weak, what are you running in there. Don't forget we are talking real watts on the Yamaha, not car stereo watts, I bought a little plastic boom box once for the workshop radio, had a 500 watts sticker on it (lucky if it was 5 watts), left the sticker on always gets a laugh! 170 wpc is plenty for studio monitors.

Cheers
Alan.
 
I didn't realize "wpc" stood for watts per channel. I second wiztendoz- that Yammie is PLENTY strong for studio monitors, and vintage Yammie hi-fi amps are good stuff.
 
Interesting development. I've just won a bid on a brand new Crown CTS600 amp worth 1250$ new, for 200$. It's 300wpc @8Ohm.

It has not one, but two fans, but I figured, Crown is a good company, it's brand new, the fans are probably well designed and won't spin so fast at low-moderate volumes if they'll spin at all.

Only strange thing about it are the input terminals. No XLR, no 1/4", no RCA, only two 3 pin terminals, pins labeled - + and ground. I guess I'll need to hack a custom made cable.

Any opinions on this purchase?
 
I have no experience with that amp, but a few impressions:

With it's out-of-the-ordinary controls, it's pretty obvious it's a live-sound amp. Variable-speed fans might make it work for recording- fans apparently come on depending on need, which could be good (you push it easy, so they never come on,) or bad (when you least suspect it, and at the worst possible time- thank you, Mr. Murphy- it comes on.)

Scratching my head over the weird connection setup- guessing it's a cost savings/one size fits all markets thing. It adds to your cost, though.

MSRP may be $1,250, but it sells for $659 on Amazon. Still, using the new price/2= used price guideline, you did good on the purchase. I wonder why you dropped 2.5C on an amp where there are used studio monitor amps available for less, but I am sure you have your reasons.

Still, I would flip it and get a studio monitor amp. Or put it into live-sound use.

JMHO.
 
Those amps are built for installed sound systems like bars / disco's - IMO it'll drive you crazy in the studio, the fans will be noisy regardless of what you are doing and it's not gonna have the best sound in the world. What was wrong with your original plan? I use a NAD hifi amp and it kicks ass 80watts per channel at 8ohms and 0.001 THD. Live or installation amps are not designed for perfect audio quality but for continuous use in hostile environments. Keep it in your live rack and buy a NAD!
 
Those "strange" connections are designed to take bare speaker wire or banana plugs. Like the above posters said, this thing is designed for reinforcement.
 
Sure it's a PA amp, but so are many other great amps that are being used in studios around the world, including many Crown models. There's essentially no difference between hifi and PA amps and I invite you to compare it's specs to any Nad amp. I even saw a few people in the audiokarma hifi forum that use them with their hi-end setup. They say it sounds great.

The fans are a problem, but I'm optimistic that the variable speed thing would keep the noise reasonable.

If not, I'll sell it with a profit.
 
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